jonberger

One time, I took a picture of a fallen tree
on the road that had been seemingly struck
by lightning.

I thought it would be good
for an album cover
for a band that wasn’t really playing anymore.

I took the photo
and tried to record the album
for the band
which wasn’t really playing anymore.
I thought they might have one last album in them
(they’d only had one to begin with)
and though they did have one last album in them,
the album didn’t get made
so the photo languished in memory
and not in production anywhere.

It may not have been a particularly good shot
anyway.
Certainly
my photo editing skills
could have used some practice
to ensure that the shot was used well.

Maybe it’s just as well
the album was never recorded.

It would have been called
Lightning Strikes Twice.

When the pain is so great but it isn’t yours
and you feel the energy just pouring out of the body,
just watch it going,

helpless to do anything about it,
wanting to be useful
but knowing there’s nothing to do,
you know you’d trade something significant
to be in a position to be able to cure
to support
to heal in some way.

This is when a devil’s deal
would be quite convenient
and when too few demons
come calling these days.

You’re just left to your own devices,
alone with your friend
and their pain
and your helplessness

in the situation.

Not a happy party, there.

I may have mentioned
on a previous occasion
that I was snubbed
at an event earlier today
because I went and there was nothing going on
and I then questioned my existence
because it wasn’t the only thing I’ve gone to recently
where it seemed that the thing I was going to
just wasn’t happening.

Turns out I was at the wrong place.
There were multiple locations
with the same name, I guess.
Egg on my face, huh!

So, anyone who might have been concerned about my personal crisis, worried about my soul there for a minute,
thanks for the worry.
Never mind, though.

Hope you’re doing swell.

If you need anything, let me know!

…Bye!

When I was in grammar school,
I was a Spider-Man freak,
collecting comics books
like they were going out of style.
They may, at that time,
at that particular late seventies’ time,
have been.

The comic store I frequented had a Fair quality copy
of Amazing Spider-Man number ten,
where he meets the Big Man
and subsequently defeats him.
It was the earliest issue of Spider-Man

I had seen, and I had to have it.

Of course, I didn’t have the kind of cash to get something like that
so I needed to beg my parents for a loan for such a thing.
I called Dad at work, and he said he would front the twenty bucks

(a steal!)

if I would go the couple of blocks to get it from him.

I dashed out the house to go on over to Ninety Seventh Street
to collect my loan so I could then pick up the issue.

On Ninety Seventh, I was excitedly anticipating the story
I was gonna get to read with its POWs and its WHAMs
when BANG! I hit a pole in the middle of the street.

I was not looking where I was going,
so thrilled was I about what was to come.
When the head-ringing stopped, I was able to focus my attention
and get to my Dad
to get the cash to get the comic
to get to the important work
of reading 20-year-old words and pictures.

If there is anything stopping you from purchasing
the particular piece of exotic comic book art
that you’ve always wanted to own,
you should stop that thing from stopping you,
even if it is a pole in the middle of the street.

That is not a moral, though.
The moral is look where you’re going, dummy.

I don’t think I told you about the times
that I hung in the Arista office in high school.

It’s probably because
I don’t remember much of anything about it.

I was a middling student
in the magnet school for science nerds in New York City.
Arista was like its honors society or something.
I don’t even remember the details.

Friends of mine were friends with members.
My crowd hung out near their office

in the morning
before classes started.

I had no real reason to be in that office;
I wasn’t particularly friendly with any Arista member.
Still, there was a day when I kicked out a kid
who had no reason to be in the office either.

Just the kind of elitist gatekeeping bullshit
that went on back then.

I’m so glad that we’re over such things now,
and that assholes like me aren’t around
to maintain such a horrid status quo.

I hear Arista’s still around.
Maybe they don’t let in people who don’t belong
who will then block people who don’t belong
from getting in.

I sure hope so.

The crimes I most like to commit
are the small ones,
like tiny thefts from stores
or ridiculous irrelevancies like jaywalking
or running red lights
(I’m also a big fan of going diagonally
across a street
– though I’ve seen a couple places
where that shit’s legal).

I like to make sure

that people without housing
or food security have access to nourishment
so if I can unlock resources that get them fed,
I’m all for that kind of thing

and if money can be distributed
evenly, even on public transport
or other places where it’s illegal,
I’ll do what I can to support it,
even conspire to get it done.

Also: fighting cops in the name of justice
– but much more

in a theoretical sense
so no skin’s in the game.

That’s a little about me.
What crimes do you most like to commit?

The dancing doesn’t have to be good
to be potent.
The dancing doesn’t have to be pleasant
to be good.
The dancing have have to be enjoyable
to be pleasant
and the dancing doesn’t have to be physical
to be dancing.

You can dance with your eyes.
You can dance between lies.
You can dance between varied usages of
me’s, myself’s and I’s
or really truly tortured tries.

You can dance for inspiration
just don’t get hung up on what the dancing is, all right?
It doesn’t have to be all that
– it just has to be.

For the last two days
I have left my home borough
to go off to events
that have not taken place.

It’s not like I didn’t pay attention.
These were scheduled events
– one a a meeting with professionals –

but in both cases
there was no evidence

that those putting on the events knew
that I existed.

I do exist, right?
I mean, I know I’m speaking out to the void here,
but there is evidence of me somewhere, isn’t there?
If I yell, is there not spittle dripping off of something

in the aftermath?

When I leave the house
I don’t just want to hear faint echoes of my footsteps
I want there to be a reason to leave the house.
Help me out, world.

Damn, I hope there’s someone listening…

The sounds around me are mellow.
Muzak mellow.

Just mellow enough to be annoying.
The kind of muzak think that
as a calmer, more rational person,
I would think I have outgrown being concerned with.

I should be over this being something that would stick in my craw,
When I was a younger
more anxious soul
when my leg would shake
and I could never let a moment’s silence be
this kind of music would not stand.

I would like to think I would be over such piddling concerns now
but still today
this music will not stand
and I feel I must search out this playlist
and destroy it

and destroy the person who came up with it
and destroy the company that invented playlists
so I’m sorry, Pachet and Roy, but you guys are going down.

I think I hear piccolo.

Goddamn, piccolo.

I would like to speak to the Calzone Authority
if I may
so I can have a better understanding
about the vast diversity
in size, volume and quality of calzones
I’ve experienced in my thirty five years
of sampling the products.

When I enjoy a calzone,
I ENJOY a calzone
but too many times
I have found the cheese inside
to be barely cooked
leaving me with chilly ricotta
which is not what I came into the experience for.

When I bought my first ‘zones from DP Dough,
they were consistently hot and crispy
but expanding out from that store
– then chain – I have found too much divergence.

If the Calzone Authority could use DP Dough
as their basis of QA, I think we’d be
in a much better national state.

I cannot speak on the subject of International Calzones.
On that topic, I will bow to other, wiser, poets.

But please, Calzone Authority, heed my words:
In the US
we can do better.
We must.